Dust Effects
Conaill and Jon on my team had asked me to create some dust particles on Niagara. I got Henry to help me with this as I wasn’t too familiar (although I know how to make fireflies from last semester). Henry was super helpful and guided me threw the particle creation process. I took notes and then did it again myself after.
The Dust Material
One key thing Henry showed me was the Dynamic Parameter feature which basically aids in turning it from a cartoon poof to actual realistic dust, due to randomised scale of each tiny particle.
Implementing with Niagara
I ended up choosing the light green shade from the colour palette to keep everything succinct. It matches with the narrative that there’s mouldy plants and oxides, and it’s a nice compliment to the orange-y brown floor materials.
Specifically, I got rid of gravity, generated it from a point and applied the Dynamic Parameter from the material. I also played with things such as the lifetime and spawn count.
Applying to UE character (looping on each step):
Test on UE character:
Sparks
I wanted to take my VFX work a little further, so I ended up making some spark FX as well. I did three variants on the UE StarterContent spark, changing the colour, positioning, gravity and various other of the elements Henry had walked me through on Fri.
Below are some of my results/experimentation: